


Letter

by CharismaticEnticer



Category: Die Anstalt
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon Het Relationship, Epistolary, F/M, Irony, Long-Distance Relationship, Major Spoilers, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Must Know Canon, Overdosing, POV First Person, Post-Canon, Present Tense, Pseudo Doctor/Patient, Sad, Sly writes like Denny from The Room, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2013-01-04
Packaged: 2017-11-23 15:42:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/623795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharismaticEnticer/pseuds/CharismaticEnticer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Actions. Although they hurt, it's the feelings that really burn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letter

**Author's Note:**

> Now we get to the shippy stuff, yay! I'll start you off with a fic about the only concretely canon pairing within the game. I tagged the sockpuppet as both "Sockpuppet" and "Marionetta" within the characters because Marionetta is my headcanon name for her (taken from the German word for puppet), but I tagged the pairing as "Sly/Sockpuppet Therapist" in case someone else might want to write for the pairing someday and has a different name for her. I don't want to confuse anyone unnecessarily.
> 
> Originally written and published on December 26th 2011.
> 
> Die Anstalt © Martin Kittsteiner. The lyrics of "Letters" (used as book-ends, shown in italics) © Matt Cardle and the labels he was with at the time.

_Send a message to my heart  
Tell it everything from the start  
Make it honest, make it true  
It's the only way we'll see it through_  
  
\---  
  
THIS DOCUMENT, AND THE LETTER TRANSCRIBED THEREIN, HAVE BEEN TRANSLATED TO ENGLISH FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE  
  
 **The patient's file:** 15/03/20▒▓  
  
Name: Sly  
Genus: plush rattlesnake  
Disorder: unknown; tests are being conducted  
  
 **Psychiatric history** [added at 19:07]  
  
Sly has been a patient of this asylum once before. In a two-month stay at the institution, he suffered constant visual/auditory delusions and severe lack of concentration. The reason behind the symptoms turned out to be physical in nature: a steady supply of hallucinogenic drugs as absorbed through his tail.  
The extraction of the drugs by way of surgery was intended to be a permanent measure, with the addition of a rattle intended to stave off any withdrawal pains; however, ten minutes ago, a comatose Sly was returned to the premises. According to the woman who dropped him off, before fainting he was showing all symptoms of an overdose on methylenedioxymethamphetamine.  
The medical staff are attempting to return him to consciousness; we in the therapeutic department, meanwhile, must determine how best to proceed when he awakens.  
  
19:23 UPDATE  
  
During transportation, one of our staff retrieved a letter from the patient, attached to his body via map pin. The contents could clarify how he got into his current condition. Transcription to follow.  
Sly's condition remains unconscious and unstable. Whether he survives to tomorrow morning remains to be seen.  
  
\---  
  
This letter is to the cute grey therapist at the psychiatry for abused cuddlytoys. I'm sorry I still can't call you by name, because no one will tell me what it is.  
  
Since getting out of where you work, I've been trying to send you letters so that we can keep up contact. Do you remember that promise? I said as I left that I'd write to you, and I kept the promise. But living in a van with two men on the road doesn't get letters delivered, so you might not have gotten any of them. Again, I'm sorry.  
  
I can't remember what I put in most of those letters now. That might be because I've written so many of them, or nerves, or other stuff kicking in. I do know what I ended most of them with, so I'm going to repeat it here just in case the letters  didn't get to you.  
  
I want to kiss you.  
  
I said that the first time we spoke, I think. You'd just gotten me to stop looking at my tail circles, so I looked at you instead, properly, through all of my eyes instead of the sides. You looked pretty, and you looked grey and you didn't spin around, which I like, so I asked if I could kiss you. You didn't say I could, but you didn't say I couldn't, and that was comforting.  
  
I tried to kiss you a lot after that. I ~~didn't~~ don't have much experience with kissing, but I wanted to do it anyway because you kept popping up between the mice and the spirals and tail and I liked it when you popped up. Sometimes I did it, sometimes I didn't, sometimes I did a mating dance with the rattle first. And when you took the red pills out of my tail and put a rattle there instead, I kissed you again but on the cheek this time because the guys were calling me back to the van in a hurry. And when I wrote all those letters to you I said in most of them that I still want to kiss you, because well how could I not? You're pretty and you helped me through one of the worst trips of my life, and you were the only thing besides my tail I could focus on.  
  
You're smart, cute grey therapist, and I'm not quite. You'd know better than me if that's what love feels like. But I'm pretty sure that's what this all is. It feels big, and love sounds like a big concept in a small word.  
  
I want to do something.  
  
Therapist, I'll be blunt with you. Sometimes, not seeing the mice and the spinning colors anymore, it hurts. I get really tired, and I don't feel like eating, and it feels good that my tail rattles but it doesn't rattle RIGHT. It doesn't help that I'm in a van with lots of colors but no you inside to give it grey and to let me kiss you lots and lots.  
  
So if you can't come to me, and the letters haven't yet got to you, then I can come to you instead.  
  
Yes, that's what I'm writing to tell you. I'm coming to you. In fact, when this is done I'll attach it to me so that when you get it you'll know I'm here and still alive. The guys still have a stash of the red pills somewhere in the van. If I can open up a seam in my tail, where you stitched it up shut, and push the pills in there with my tongue and squash it and wave it around, I'll be able to go back into the smoke and spiral circles that I was in when I first met you. The guys will throw me out of the window again and someone will find me and take me to the psychiatry and you'll get me through the trip, and this time when I wake up and they try to call me back I won't leave, I'll stay there forever with you instead. Maybe I'll get a job as a therapist myself and distract some of the others. Is that hippo still there? I'll start with him.  
  
I don't know how many it'll take, so I'll start with three and work my way up. The more I take, the longer I'll be with you, even after I get better. I might as well start doing that when this is done, since writing with my tail is starting to sting a bit. Though that might help loosen the seam a bit too.  
  
Therapist, I love you, and I want to kiss you. When I get to where you are, make sure I get your name so I don't keep calling you just "therapist", okay? And show me whether or not the letters got there. I don't want this to have been pointless by the end.  
  
I should get started. I'll see you soon.  
  
\- Sly  
  
\---  
  
 _Send them all, the letters_  
 _Fit them all together_  
 _Set in stone, forever_  
 _Make it whole, and never_  
 _Tell a soul, endeavor_  
 _To be told_  
  
 _Send a message to my heart..._


End file.
